Racing at last

Mother nature threw us a curve ball as we approached San Francisco in
the form of a wind hole, this meant that we were delayed another day
getting into port since we had virtually run out of diesel and the wind
gods had let us down again. Thankfully, Cape Breton put to sea with
emergency supplies - beer, food, cigarettes and of course, the vital fuel
that would propel us under the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
The race was then on to get into port before the tide changed, if we
missed the tide this would have meant which another 5 hours out in the
bay!! At 05.00hrs on the 19th we
passed under the Golden Gate bridge and docked just before 06.00, Anna
along with other crew relatives were shouting words of welcome from the
breakwater. Once we tied up we waited nearly 3 hours until the immigration
officials arrived. After a few beers we were eventually cleared and
headed off for a well earned shower and a shave. We had given
ourselves the chance of making the race start (18.00hrs on the 20th)
even though we had many jobs to complete before we could sail - water
maker, generator, new main sail etc etc.
And so, on the 20th we prepared ourselves for the start, the sun was
shining but there was a stiff breeze with gusts predicted at 40 knots as
we got out into the bay - no change there then!
As the gun went off, with collective team adrenaline pumping through our
bodies we headed back under the Golden gate bridge for the next
installment of this ultimate white knuckle ride.
There was much debate amongst the rest of the fleet as to how the Team
Finland crew would perform after being at sea for 35 days and without any
"downtime",well, we made our intentions very clear by heading the fleet
after 24 hrs. We have had the predicted battle with Spirit of Australia
for the lead in this race, at the last reported positions they were 4
miles ahead of us as the fleet race towards the scoring gate.
After a few problems with our spinnakers - we ripped 3 of them, we managed
to secure 2nd place through the scoring gate and earn an additional 2
points, unfortunatley the Aussies pipped us and therefore extend their lead,
the good news is that we are well and truely back in the race!
The weather has turned to clear blue skies and light winds which will
present all of the teams with the challenge of keeping these 35 tonne
monsters moving.
Love the comments on the blog, I can only access them when we reach dry land
but keep them coming.
All is well on TF.